Vintage Collection Outlook:  We’re Doomed

Chances are you are familiar with the German site Star Wars Figuren and its admin volkerc who has been a constant and reliable news source for years. Despite optimism that Hasbro was able to pivot away from the disastrous carry-forwards of already repacked figures, volkerc reports today that the wave 2 case assortment is the original assortment we feared:

HAN SOLO 1x
KYLO REN 1x
FIRST ORDER STORMTROOPER 1x
REY JAKKU 1x
SUPREME LEADER SNOKE x1
[Dr. Aphra] (??) Enfys Nest 1x
IMPERIAL HOVERTANK PILOT 1x
IMPERIAL DEATH TROOPER 1x

If this is true, I'm ready to throw my hands up. Needless repacks and carry forwards have plagued this line for nearly a decade. STOP WITH THE UNNECESSARY REPACKS, HASBRO!!!. We know that "line accessibility" is critical, and the lack of it was what sunk lines from Masters of the Universe to The Simpsons, but it's not the 20th century anymore. For many consumers (collectors and parents alike), the secondary market is no longer a fringe purchasing alternative. If a figure is readily available at e-tail, Ebay and on Amazon storefronts, brick and mortar availability isn't as important! A rare few figures need high brick and mortar availability and their names rhyme with Darth, Han, Luke and Leia (and a few army builders). The four figures bolded above are the same four figures plaguing every single Target store in my area. More troubling, many collector e-sites are already starting to clear them out, and their reward will be more unsellable stock coming soon.

The only glimmer of hope in this saga is that our friends at Jedi Temple Archives, who are equally as reliable of a source, have listed a much more viable wave 2 case assortment. It should also be noted that Star Wars Figuren is a German site and since the Walmart Black Series figures (which were the original release of three of the four figures in bold above) were not available in Europe, the carry forward is less egregious for that reason. But if that case assortment is the same for the US, I need to restate the blurb from the font page. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

Carrying forward those four figures into wave 2 of TVC in the US where three of them were already repacks in Wave 1 from the Walmart Black Series (and had largely satisfied demand) would be an epic case of tone deafness on the part of Hasbro which is amazing coming on the heels of the Sail Barge campaign where they had their finger squarely on the pulse of the collecting community.

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